CAB Direct is a source of references for the applied life sciences It incorporates two bibliographic databases: CAB Abstracts and Global Health. CAB Direct is an access point for multiple bibliographic databases produced by CABI. This database contains 8.8 million bibliographic records, which includes 85,000 full text articles. It also includes noteworthy literature reviews. News articles and reports are also part of this combined database.[1]

In the U.K., in 1947, the Imperial Agricultural Bureaux became the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux or CAB. In 1986 the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux became CAB International or CABI[2]

CAB Abstracts is an applied life sciences bibliographic database emphasising agricultural literature, which is international in scope. It contains 6 million records, with coverage from 1973 to present day, adding 300,000 abstracts per year. Subject coverage includes agriculture, environment, veterinary sciences, applied economics, food science and nutrition. Database covers international issues in agriculture, forestry, and allied disciplines in the life sciences. Indexed publications are from 150 countries in 50 languages, including English abstracts for most articles. Literature coverage includes journals, proceedings, books, and a large collection of agricultural serials. Other non-journal formats are also indexed.[3][4][5]

Weed Abstracts is updated weekly with summaries from notable English and foreign language journal articles, reports, conferences and books about weeds and herbicides. With the back-file, coverage is from 1990 to present day bringing the total of available research summaries to 130,000 records.[6]

Global Health is a bibliographic database which focuses on research literature in public health and medical health science sectors (including practice). Information (see infobox above) in indexed in more than 5000 academic journals, and indexed from other sources such as reports, books and conferences. Global Health contains over 1.2 million scientific records from 1973 to the present, with an addition of 90,000 indexed and abstracted records per year. Sources are abstracted from publications in 158 countries written in 50 languages. Any relevant non-English-language papers are translated into English. Proceedings, patents, thesis papers, electronic publications and relevant but difficult-to-find literature sources are also part of this database.[7][8][9]

Global Health Archive is a searchable database produced by CABI. It is created from 800,000 records, from six printed abstract journals, which are collected published scientific research from 1910 to 1972, digitized to form the archive. Global Health Archive is also indexed in other databases, which also serve as access points. These other databases are CAB Direct, Web of Knowledge, EBSCOhost, OvidSP, and Dialog.[10]

Back-file coverage is from 1990 to present day, with an accessible base of 195,000 abstracts and the addition of 11,000 records per year. As a monthly journal Tropical Diseases Bulletin is also available in print. This print journal has author, subject and serials cited indexes. Coverage of the print back-file is to 1912. A searchable, electronic database version of this journal is part of the Global Health Archive (see above).[12]

This indexing database focuses on scientific literature pertaining to all topics in organic farming, in both the temperate and tropical zones. This includes sustainability issues and soil fertility. Coverage is global; literature is obtained from 125 countries. The temporal coverage spans 30 years, 180,000 organic research abstracts, along with the addition of 8000 records per year. Linking to full text articles, guided searches, broad subject categorization along with subject refinement are also provided. The editorial advisory board of this database also commission reviews pertaining to organic farming.[13][14]

CABI full text repository is integrated into all CABI databases including CAB Abstracts, and Global Health. Both of these are online and print journals. Coverage includes 70,000 full text articles, through agreements with third party publishers. Eighty percent of the content is exclusive to CABI.[15]

The full text repository is made up of fifty percent journal articles, and equal percentage of conference (proceeding) papers, and other accessible literature is also included. Eighty percent of the articles are in English and coverage includes 56 countries. Also included in this database are relevant but hard to find materials which crosses disciplines consisting of agriculture, health and the life sciences. Main stream literature and hard to find materials of equal relevance are given equal access.[15]

CABI full text repository is indexed in other databases, which also serve as access points, consisting of Web of Knowledge (Thomson Reuters), CAB Direct, OvidSP, Dialog, Dimdi, and EBSCOhost.